Discussions on Science & Theology

Science

The common argument that atheism is simply “the lack of a belief in God,” still requires a great deal of clarification before it can be considered anything other than shifty rhetoric and polarizing disregard. Many claim to be atheist because the apparent lack of evidence corroborating the existence of an intelligent designer. However, If I were to affirm the existence of God by simply drawing attention to the inability of natural laws and behaviors to account for the origins of space, time, matter, and life, then my atheist counterpart would unquestionably be quick to point out the disparity between my observation and my conclusion.

Atheism has huge scientific implications, a natural and unguided universe is an astounding and remarkable claim that defies the most astronomical probabilities. The key to formulate a compelling case is corroborating ones own argument with as much evidence as possible, then comparing it with competing interpretations to assess the most conclusive and comprehensive argument. Yet what we typically encounter are atheist dismissing the creationist side in a attempt to establish their positions predominance by default. The irony is that this type of “weak” atheism, as it is commonly referred to, is ubiquitous even among the most militant atheist. It seems that rather than engaging in the debate most atheist have cleverly postured themselves on the outskirts of the discussion, often more content with mocking and ridiculing their opponents ideas as puerile than providing compelling arguments of their own.

Because atheism directly infers the universe and everything in it came about by purely natural processes, an educated atheist must offer compelling evidence for said universe, that is if they wish to delineate an objective and educated framework for their world-view. While we understand the kind of events that must of taken place in order for the universe to exist, the fact that we don’t know precisely how it all came about doesn’t directly imply a designer. However, at this point in time we can rest assured that atheism is far from the default position. Any argument that simply asserts the “lack of belief in God” while refusing to provide any alternative evidence for a natural and unguided universe should not be valued for anything other than ignorance. The attempt to depict a designer as inherently puerile and superfluous might be enough for that PBS special, but it’s not going to withstand its critics scrutiny.

On one hand atheist such as Richard Dawkins agree that “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” On the other hand atheist reject ID on the premise that there is insufficient evidence. Yet when you press the naturalist on the question of origins they concede the fact that even the most advanced evolutionary biologist in the world have no clue how life could have arisen by natural processes.

It’s interesting how so many prominent atheist thinkers agree that life appears designed, yet they all insist a designer is superfluous even though they have no clue how life could have arisen by natural processes. Are atheist guilty of blindly filling in the gaps with a natural unguided process? Is there an apparent prejudice within the scientific community that precludes God as a possibility? If life appears designed and there is no evidence to suggest it came about naturally, isn’t it logical to infer a designer?

The fact that naturalism is incapable of explaining our origins follows the basic predictions from the God-hypothesis. Sure atheist can argue that they’re “still working on it,” but couldn’t this argument be perpetuated indefinitely? At what point does the absence of evidence become the evidence of absence? How can God be considered superfluous when we have no substantiated alternative explanation, and all the while life appears to be purposefully designed? We are far beyond basic God of the gaps here; advances in molecular biology and the current data about the origins of the cosmos have some remarkable design engineering implications.

Unless there is evidence that can adequately explain away the appearance of design, I think it’s safe to assume that Intelligent Design is in inference to the best explanation.

Throughout this blog I have transcribed some of the growing concerns with regard to the efficacy of Darwinian evolution in explaining the diversity and biological complexity of living organisms. I have also spent a great deal of time addressing the perennial issue of origins, shedding light on the scientific communities rather tentative approach in postulating a coherent theory which would adequately explain the origins of the first information necessary to produce life; a phenomena which surely must have transpired at some point in our distant past.

My purpose in writing this post is to provide a comprehensive critique on the contemporary orthodox perspective that an unguided naturalistic process could account for the origins of life and the rise of new complex biological novelties, as well as the origins of the cosmos – not mentioning the anthropic fine-tuning necessary for sustaining it.

One of the first things that I began to write about was the inconsistency between the fossil record and the theory of evolution, or macro-evolution, that is the gradual transition from one species into a fundamentally new anatomical creature. Darwin himself conceded the fact that in order for his theory to be viable it would have to be a very slow and progressive process because only small genetic variations meet the test of heritability; larger mutations typically result in death and/or sterility.

Thus by it own logic the Darwinian theory predicts a specific pattern of evidence when observing the fossil record. More to the point, one would expect innumerable transitional fossils illustrating a slow harmonious evolution of evolving complexity over millions and millions of years. Yet what we find is a rather abrupt beginning of life forms already in advanced anatomical stages. We see fully developed kinds that more or less remain the same until they go extinct, nothing that would seem to indicate a gradual evolution over time.

It was Steven M. Stanley, the renown American paleontologist and evolutionary biologist who wrote “Species that were once thought to have turned into others, have now been found to overlap in time with these alleged descendants. In fact the fossil record doesn’t convincingly document a single transition from one species to another.” In contrast to this notion that the fossil record supports an evolving tree of evolutionary complexity, Stanley touches on the reality that such is the diversity of life that often lends it self to plausible intermediates. But surely buried some where deep in the rocky strata there must be compiled countless transitional fossils collectively documenting the morphological evolution of life – right?

It wasn’t until the 1970’s that we began to see paleontologist such as Stanley reject the concept of gradualism. Strictly adhering to the empirical data, Stephen J. Gould and Niles Eldredge were the first to introduce the theoretical concept of punctuated equilibria. In essence this was an attempt by paleontologist and evolutionary biologist, deeply ingrained in the philosophical concept of naturalism, to tailor an evolutionary theory to fit the lack of evidence for morphological trends in the fossil record.

“indeed the chief frustration of the fossil record is that we do not have empirical evidence for sustained trends in the evolution of most complex morphological adaptations” – Stephen J. Gould

Eldredge and Gould asserted that speciation is primarily restricted to rare and relatively rapid events (punctuation), outside of these episodic events species persist in a state of stasis, where they remain relatively unchanged (equilibrium).

“The Eldredge-Gould concept of punctuated equilibrium has gained wide acceptance among paleontologist. It attempts to account for the following paradox: within continuous sampled lineages, one rarely finds the gradual morphological trends predicted by Darwinian evolution.. The punctuated equilibrium model has been widely accepted, not because it has a compelling theoretical basis but because it appears to resolve a dilemma.” – Robert E. Ricklefs

The problem with the theoretical foundation of punctuated equilibrium is that its breaking alliance with one of evolution’s greatest allies – time! Thus while punctuated equilibrium seemingly bridges the gap in the fossil record, it raises some serious questions in the field of genetic populations.

In the arena of applied mathematics, natural selection acting on random mutations to produce new anatomical novelties is by no small measure a stretch of the imagination. The ratio of functional mutations to all the possible ways of arranging the genetic sequences in the DNA is astronomically small by anyone’s scientific standards. Thus when you begin to diminish the time-frame allotted for these transitions to take place, you seriously jeopardize an already infinitesimal likelihood of reaching your desired outcome.

Moreover, when we delve further into the mathematical plausibility of the mutational theory to account for the evolution of new ‘kinds’, we must also consider that in cases where we have land mammals evolving into fully aquatic creatures we need multiple coordinated mutations taking place in roughly the same time-span. For example, in order to get a successful transition from a Protocetus to a fully aquatic whale, we would need dramatic reorganization of the kidney tissue in order to take on salt water; we need hydrodynamic properties for the skin; forelimbs transformed into flippers; novel muscles for the blow hole; modified mammary glands to nurse its young underwater, etc,. etc,.

Predicated on the competition for survival, natural selection assumes that mutations provided for an edge in reproductive success among competing organisms. In order for evolution to be viable, every mutation must create a net benefit, otherwise natural selection will sift it out. Yet because mutations are random, the odds of getting multiple coordinated mutations necessary for sustaining a healthy marine vertebrate is mathematically inconceivable. In 2008 Durnin and Schmitt calculated the odds of simply getting two coordinated mutations for a complex adaptation like the one I just mentioned, and their conclusion was that you could get these two coordinated mutations once every 43.3 million years! – wheres the punctuation in that?

So are you willing to throw in the towel and slap a Jesus fish on your bumper yet? probably not.. and I agree while many of these anomalies don’t seem to have any specific scientific answer, they don’t necessarily beg the transcendental either. Invoking such explanations are more typically reserved for describing the emergence of life and the origins of the cosmos. 😉

In light of Sir Edwin Hubble’s discovery of the expanding universe we reach two very important questions that biologist and physicist have yet to answer. In relation to purely natural processes: (1) How did the universe begin? (2) How was the first information assembled?

Up until the 30’s most scientist believed that universe was eternal and that all life could be explained by a seamless natural process – human life, simpler life, chemical life, elementary particles from eternities past. Yet It was Albert Einstein’s field equations of general relativity and his new scheme for understanding the dimensions of ‘space-time’ that first postulated the theoretical concept of an expanding universe. Though it’s philosophical implications would initially lead Einstein to hypothesize a counteracting equation known as the cosmological constant, he would later refer to this illusory constant as the “greatest blunder” of his professional career.

Hubble’s usage of the great dome telescopes to document the data for the expanding universe has proved to be one of the most remarkable scientific discoveries ever. If the universe is continually expanding, then what happens when we begin to wind the clock backward? In 1969 Stephen Hawking solved Einsteins field equations and concluded that if if we go back far enough in time the curvature of ‘space-time’ would become so tight that it would become infinitely tight. For most scientist this was a very unpleasant reality, because for the first time there appeared to be considerable evidence in favor of the supernatural.

“This is an exceeding strange development unexpected by all but the theologians who have accepted the word of the Bible. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conqueror the highest peak, as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been siting there for centuries.” – Robert Jastrow

Further down the rabbit hole we begin to reach the origins of life, a mystery that often invokes the most exotic and mystical explanations that you will ever hear – typically rendering most naturalist content to avoid the question all together. However, there are a few things that we do know, we know that in order for proteins to assemble they need the information coded in the DNA. Much like the syntax in language or computer programming, the DNA is characterized by what is known as sequence specificity, meaning that the specific arrangement of its parts are necessary for it’s function as a whole. Apart from this specified information amino acids do not have the capacity to organize themselves into a meaningful biological sequence. Dean Kenyon, ex-chemical evolutionary theorist argues that “the enormous problem that is neglected is the origins of genetic information it self.. We have not the slightest chance of chemical evolutionary origin for the simplest cell.”

To this day chemical evolution persist as the most inconceivable conceptual theory in the scientific community. There are absolutely no known naturalistic processes that have ever demonstrated the ability to generate the information necessary for the first life. So how does the naturalist reconcile this dichotomy between materialism and origins? well they don’t.. atheism has simply become the default among pretentious intellectuals who assert that belief in God is puerile, and anyone who disagrees simply gets stigmatized and bullied into the outskirts of the “scientific” debate.

A fact of contemporary life is that there has been a serious decline of religious faith. Thus there is a hunger for a creation story that doesn’t involve any external or transcendental explanation. Evolution and other atheistic ideologies are adopted merely on the qualification that they comply with a party-line that says ‘you may embrace any methodology that doesn’t invoke intelligence.’ Yet it is our knowledge of cause and effect that tells us complexity and design always point to an acting agent.

Intelligent design is not objected to on the grounds of inconclusive evidence, physics clearly points us to a theistic “in the beginning” type of explanation; rather, Intelligent design is objected because of it’s philosophical implications. Just as predicted, the world is perpetually becoming a darker and darker place, seeking to expel God from every political, social, cultural, and scientific thought. Information and empirical data will never be enough to sway some people from the depths of their naturalistic paradigm, because for some it’s not about the evidence, it’s about a fist-clenching dogmatic denial of God’s existence.

The point that Lennox is trying to make can be illustrated in the following manner: Suppose thousands of years ago a group of primitive individuals came across a leather bound book filled with letters and symbols the likes of which they had never seen before. If the individuals were reductionist they would only try and explain the nature of the book in terms of the ink and paper.

Though the specific semantics of the symbols might not be deducible, we certainly do as rational and logical creatures have the capacity to recognize the product of other minds. Of course the symbols are abstract but we still have the capacity to infer intelligent causation. This can also be understood through logical syntax, where we recognize the ordered structure of things as meaningful, again this is part of being a rational and logical human being.

In fact the scriptures tell us that all of creation – the sun, moon and stars – are symbols with a semiotic dimension, they are a universal language that denote the existence of a creator.

Psalms 19: 1-4

“The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork.

Day unto day utters speech, And night unto night reveals knowledge.

There is no speech nor language Where their voice is not heard.

Their line has gone out through all the earth, And their words to the end of the world.”

As Christians we hold that there is a semiotic dimension to the world around us where we can reasonably infer intelligent design, in the same way that primitive individuals finding a leather bound book with mysterious and foreign symbols inside of it would.

In the arena of philosophical and scientific discussion the word faith is often used to describe a belief that is unsubstantiated. In other words faith is employed to fill gaps in knowledge, thus the more faith I have the further I travel outside the scope of empirical evidence.

But what exactly is it that constitutes faith? Derived from the Greek word pistis, faithis simply translated “to be persuaded.” So what is it that persuades someone like myself to believe in God? Is it evidence in that which is evident? or is it blind unsubstantiated claims completely void of reason?

I am frequently told that it is the latter of the two, that to profess the notion that God created the world is to place some abstract wibble wobble like widget in place of science. Such ideas falsely assume that creationist such as myself are inserting God as a mechanism in place of science. On the contrary, I hold God as an agent who has established the laws of nature.

In the words of John Lennox -“Suppose we have a Rolls Royce turbo jet engine, and I offer two explanations of it, first is aeronautical engineering and the basic laws of thermodynamics. Another explanations is Rolls and Royce, Choose one! Well anyone can see that’s an absurdity, their two different kinds of explanations, the first is in terms of law and mechanism, that is the scientific one, and the second is in terms of agency”

The conflict between theism and atheism is not whether God and science contradict each other, what it really boils down to for me is the question of origins – How did life begin? There are only two possible explanations

a) life was created

b) life evolved naturally through non-living particles

Both have some rather supernatural implications. On one hand you have to either accept that an all powerful and eternal God created the universe, or that – despite it being mathematically impossible and scientifically implausible – life evolved naturally through an unguided process – take your pick!

I recently had a conversation with a blogger in which he explained to me how “New Atheists [such as himself] clearly self identify as agnostic atheists.” which simply means that while they don’t claim to have sufficient knowledge to make a conclusion on how life began, they are persuaded that God doesn’t exist.

When confronted with the question of origins most atheist like the blogger I mentioned will try to conveniently play the agnostic card and say they don’t presume to know how life began and that they would never pretend to know something so silly. We are often led to believe that atheist make no claims of belief, that they simply assert the “lack of a belief” in a intelligent designer. Albeit to deny the existence of God is to directly infer the only other alternative whether they care to admit it or not. The agnostic card hidden up the sleeve is just an attempt to save face and not commit intellectual suicide by saying that they believe life evolved naturally.

The English astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle’s explained why life could not have arisen by a purely natural unguided process:

“life could not have had a random beginning.. the trouble is that there is about two thousand enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in 10 to the 40,000 power, an outrageous small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup. If one is not prejudiced either by social beliefs or by a scientific training into the conviction that life originated on the Earth, this simple calculation wipes the idea entirely out of court….The enormous information content of even the simplest living systems…cannot in our view be generated by what are often called “natural” processes…For life to have originated on the Earth it would be necessary that quite explicit instruction should have been provided for its assembly…There is no way in which we can expect to avoid the need for information, no way in which we can simply get by with a bigger and better organic soup, as we ourselves hoped might be possible a year or two ago.”

Naturalist will often argue that the theory of Intelligent Design (ID) isn’t verifiable because we can not “put God under the microscope,” thus they conveniently erect the self-serving impasse that if God can’t be put into a test tube then He must not exist, or simply doesn’t deserve any significant consideration. So If God were alive how does the naturalist presume one might conclude his existence? Its important to distinguish that advocates for ID do not claim to have God in a test-tube, they are simply arguing that ID is in inference to the best explanation.

Naturalism has befuddled itself with the materialistic concept of reality while dismissing the more important concept of actuality, what the naturalist have managed to do is to create a system or rhetoric which precludes their acknowledgment of Gods existence regardless if He actually does or doesn’t exist. It appears as if the naturalist are not concerned in discovering reality as much as they are seeking to preserve a materialistic ideology. It’s followers seem more predicated on defending the walls of their skepticism than expanding their horizons.

Our inability to falsify God hardly disqualifies Him from being true, if one wants to assume that reality ends where the material stops, then by all means one is welcome to stay in it’s naturalistic conclave. Sir Arthur Eddington, an astrophysicist from the early 1900’s exemplified this type of argument from incredulity when he said “Philosophically the notion of a beginning of the present order is repugnant to me. I should like to find a genuine loophole. I simply don’t believe the present order of things started off with a bang.. its preposterous.. it leaves me cold.”

The idea behind scientific theories is not to formulate a hypothesis which best conforms to our world view, but to see which explanation can best track the footprints of life back to its origins, technically speaking we will never be able to determine who or what actually caused those prints i.e. the existence of God or an unguided natural process, but we can most certainly tell which foot best fits the shoe.

The poster-boys for the ‘new atheist’ such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens hold the idea of an intelligent designer as superfluous in understanding how the universe began, thus the idea of God is nothing more than a delusion – or a disease as the more militant atheist would argue. However, the concept of design was actually the foundation for early modern scientist such as Kepler, Boyle, Galileo, Copernicus & Newton. The motto of such early scientist was intelligibility; they believed that they could study nature and make sense of it all – Why? because they believed science was intelligible to the human mind in that it was designed by a rational intellect.

Don’t doubt the Creator, because it is inconceivable that accidents alone could be the controller of this universe.” – Isaac Newton

The concept behind materialism is that matter and energy are the entities from which everything arises. Essentially there’s nothing beyond the physical world that exists; ultimately life evolved from non-living particles, thus there is no God and ultimately no purpose – only electrically charged signals blasting through our material brains. Proponents of such naturalistic and atheistic ideologies usually appeal to reason and science while arrogating to themselves the “high-ground” in the debate. Early evolutionary scientist didn’t have any problem with the idea of materialism because they assumed the world was infinite, that the origins of life and the solar system could simply be explained through a seamless materialistic account – Human life, simpler life, chemical life, elementary particles from eternities past. However, several scientific discoveries in the 20th century have brought this materialist thesis toppling down.

In 1935, Astronomer Edwin Hubble headed a startling breakthrough in the field of Cosmology; the great dome telescopes revealed to us that the universe was not eternal like scientist had once thought. Hubble discovered that not only were we just one out of an innumerable number of galaxies, but even more significant was that the light coming from these galaxies was being shifted in the magnetic spectrum, indicating that the light was coming from objects that were receding, revealing that the universe was expanding. This led cosmologist to contemplate, what happens if we begin to wind the clock backwards? if you go back a million years, a hundred-million years, etc. With each step backwards the universe would get smaller and smaller until eventually all matter was locked in a finite beginning; this discovery directly contradicted the materialistic view point that the universe is eternal and self-existent. After looking into Hubble’s telescope for the first time Albert Einstein famously stated

“I now see the necessity of a beginning”

Edwin Hubble’s discovery of the expanding universe had remarkable theistic implications in the field of astronomy and cosmology. Renown American astronomer, Allan Sandage reluctantly stated “Here is evidence for what can only be described as a supernatural event. There is no way that this could have been predicted within the realm of physics as we know it”Furthermore, leading NASA scientist and astronomer, Robert Jastrow famously said“This is an exceeding strange development unexpected by all but the theologians who have accepted the word of the Bible. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conqueror the highest peak, as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been siting there for centuries.”

In 1968 Stephen Hawking solved Albert Einstein’s field equations of general relativity and further cemented Hubble’s discovery of a finite beginning. Hawking proved that if you go back in time you eventually reach a point where the curvature of spacetime becomes so tight that it becomes infinitely tight, a circle so tight that it has no volume. Thus we come to the question asked by Stephen Meyer “how much stuff, can you fit in zero space?” obviously no stuff goes into no space, Thus we can see how the ‘big-bang’ theory coupled with general relativity describes both a beginning in time and a beginning in space and matter.

“Hubble’s discovery on the expansion of the universe was one of the most important intellectual discoveries of the 20th century, or of any century. It transformed the debate about whether the universe had a beginning. If galaxies are moving apart, they must have been closer together in the past.. Many scientist were still unhappy with the universe having a beginning because it seemed to imply that physics broke down. One would have to invoke an outside agency, for convenience sake, one can call God.” – Stephen Hawking

How did life originate? did we appear from simple non-living chemicals? or was life designed? Those who argue from the corner of chemical evolution generally appeal to neo-darwinian evolution in attesting to an unguided process; that natural selection sifts through random mutations and identifies the most sufficient forms and system’s for life’s continuation. While those arguing from Intelligent Design (ID) argue that living systems can best be explained by the activity of a designing intelligence not an undirected natural process such as natural selection acting on random variations.

Richard Dawkins one of the leading spokesman for neo-darwinism says that

“Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed with a purpose.”

The keyword here is “appearance”, is this idea of appearance illusory or is it real? While Dawkins and other evolutionist certainly acknowledges that life looks intelligently designed, is it possible that intelligence is in inference to the best explanation? I believe it is for several reasons which I would like to briefly explain – and no I will not be calling my faith up to the stand.

Firstly I would like to touch on the idea of specified complexity or digital information. In order to create new anatomical novelties you need new genetic code, thus generating a new biological form requires lots of new information or specified arrangements; much like you need new information to give your computer a new function. Thus a critical question in the history of life, both to the point of the origin of the first life and explaining the rise of the new forms, is where did all the information come from?

This is what ex-chemical evolutionary theorist Dean Kenyon described as a huge intellectual road block which ultimately led to his conversion to ID. He says that amino acids can’t organize themselves in a meaningful biological sequence without a pre-existing set of genetic instructions. Kenyon explains that the enormous problem that is neglected is the origins of genetic information itself. Wen you begin to think in light of information, it raises some serious questions about the power of mutations. Could an unguided process of random mutations possibly be responsible for life as we know it?

Genes are sections of genetic code, if you take a section of genetic code, a section of alphabetic text, and you begin to randomly change it blindly, are you more likely to degrade the meaning of the function that’s there or enhance it? How rare or common are the functional sequences of genes in relation to all the possible ways of arranging the base characters (genetic message) in the proteins? If it were fairly common then you could skip from one island of functionality to the next. However, the ratio of number of sequences that perform functions that are meaningful to those that don’t is about 1 to one-trillionth. I know crazy right? But it doesn’t stop there because in order to get a new organism you would need hundreds if not thousands of mutations to occur, the odds are simply astronomical for even one successful transition.

Another signature in the body that leads me to believe in ID is the discovery of nano-technology, which has revealed very tiny complex biological machinery such as the bacteria flagella motor with its rotary engine, drive shafts, and whip-like propeller. Such systems have been defined as irreducibly complex as you can see below

Michael Behe an American biochemist asserts that random genetic mutations and natural selection can not account for such complexity. We know from experience that when we find irreducibly complex systems such as internal combustion engines invariably intelligence played a roll. Thus using the idea of mutations and natural selection to explain new digital information and irreducibly complex systems would be an exotic explanation not based on the knowledge of cause and effect that we see today.

Thus the conclusion reached is that specified digital information encoded in DNA could not have arisen by any known natural cause. Ultimately intelligent design is not made from an argument of ignorance but is in inference to the best explanation. The structure of the argument is that there are no known naturalistic processes that have been demonstrated to produce the digital code necessary to produce the first life, whether through chance or law. Yet we do know of one cause sufficient to produce specified digital information and that cause is intelligence.

A convenient repository of Biblical truth in the form of Quizlet flashcard sets on various topics facing people in the modern age ....................................................... “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword." -Matthew 10:34